What Folly Reason, What Folly Hope
by sydedalus
Summary: A fill in for the summer beginning after the first scene in No Reason and ending eventually with the first scene in Meaning. Gen. Emphasis on House and Wilson's best buddy status with some Wilson, Cameron, Cuddy interaction.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** What Folly Reason, What Folly Hope (1/5)  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Characters:** everyone, but emphasis on House and Wilson's best-buddy status with Cuddy and Cameron in supporting roles  
**Spoilers:** "No Reason"  
**Summary:** Yep, another post-"No Reason". Takes us from the last scene to the inevitable 'so, House, how's the ---'.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

The first time it happened, he was indignant.

He marched into Cuddy's office, threw the article at her and snarled, "I'm fine."

Cuddy glanced at the article—something from a British medical journal on a "very promising" combination of drugs and hypnosis to treat chronic pain—and stared blankly at him for a moment. She folded her hands and smiled sweetly.

"Then you can start working in the clinic again," she said. "You've over four years behind. Peevy called in sick today. Check with Brenda."

House narrowed his eyes and, deciding that the passive aggressive act of leaving the article on his desk was really more Wilson's style, glowered at her and stormed out.

The next day, after purloining half of Wilson's lunch, House swallowed the last French fry and looked aggressively at Wilson.

"I can do my own research," he said, pushing himself up. "I don't need you doing it for me."

Wilson also acted confused. "And I can eat my own lunch," he said slowly. "I don't need _you_ eating it for me."

House narrowed his eyes again, growled to himself and stalked off.

A few months later, after two more articles on potential breakthroughs for chronic pain suffers appeared on his desk, he decided that they were in cahoots and that he would ignore them. Of course, he couldn't stop himself from stealing more food from Wilson or nettling Cuddy more often when a new article appeared, but he never said anything about it again and in his mind, that constituted ignoring them. He didn't think at all about the rush of adrenaline-fueled hope that overtook him every time he saw a new article waiting on his desk, or about the dozen times he poured over each one, no matter how faulty it seemed.

So when an article on the use of ketamine-induced dissociative comas greeted him a month before he and Stacy went to Baltimore, he absorbed it with his usual fervor until he found the flaws in the study too overwhelming and took his anger out on Wilson's sandwich.

But, possessed as he was of an excellent memory, he didn't forget.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** What Folly Reason, What Folly Hope  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Characters:** everyone, but emphasis on House and Wilson's best-buddy status with Cuddy and Cameron in supporting roles  
**Spoilers:** "No Reason"  
**Summary:** Yep, another post-"No Reason". Takes us from the last scene to the inevitable 'so, House, how's the ---'.

Thanks for the reviews! No, Cameron isn't the article fairy. House was right.

* * *

**Chapter 2**

"Ketamine?" Chase said incredulously amid the flurry of activity surrounding his now unconscious boss. "Why would he want ketamine?"

"Beats me," Foreman said as he checked House's reflexes for any evidence of spinal damage.

"Page Dr. Cuddy," Cameron barked at one of the trauma nurses.

In the five minutes Cuddy took getting from her office to the emergency department, the four doctors and three nurses had House stripped, connected to every necessary monitor, and, despite an abysmal BP due to a severed jugular, stable enough that Chase was busily ultrasounding his abdomen when she arrived.

"Liver's clean," Chase reported—somewhat needlessly, as Cameron, Foreman, and the E.R. attending were all transfixed by the screen.

"What the hell happened?" Cuddy asked, having approached unnoticed. She looked from doctor to doctor, surprised but not surprised. The news of a shooting on the fourth floor reached her just before the page from the E.R.

Cameron stepped forward. "Doctor House was shot," she said in the detached, impersonal tone her profession demanded. She glanced over her shoulder; Cuddy followed her eye line to a team of doctors working on another person nearby.

Cuddy nodded shortly. She'd been informed that security had shot the assailant.

"Once in the abdomen, once in the neck," Cameron continued. "The second bullet severed the jugular. He's lost two pints, but we've got the bleeding under control. The first hit his stomach but doesn't seem to have affected any other organs."

Cameron looked to Chase for confirmation.

Chase nodded. "Liver, pancreas, and gall bladder are clean."

Cuddy noted the blood running out of the tube taped to House's nose. The image of him wiggling his eyebrows at her only two hours ago when he'd stopped by to administer her fertility treatment came unbidden.

"This ass is becoming less attractive by the day," he'd quipped. "The pincushion look is oh so sexy." Then he'd wiggled his eyebrows and left for the clinic.

Through sheer force of will, she kept all of this off of her face. Cameron's comment about the next available O.R. passed over her.

Cameron stopped talking and the professionalism dropped from her countenance in favor of confusion.

"Before he lost consciousness," she said, "he said to tell you he wanted ketamine."

Cameron's eyes searched Cuddy's for some clue to House's meaning.

"Page Wilson," Cuddy said, somehow managing to sound normal despite the emotions whirling in her stomach.

Eyes full of unasked questions, Cameron moved toward the phone, slowly at first, then at a run.

Wilson had found this study. Though they'd both gone over it with a fine-tooth comb and though the level of trust between her and House had recently skyrocketed, she needed a second opinion. A third opinion, really, since House's was the first. But House didn't know his jugular vein was in two pieces or— She just needed another person on this one. That had been Stacy's mistake. House wasn't a one-woman job.

"O.R.'s ready."

Chase's voice cut through her thoughts and she saw the blood-splattered gurney rolling toward the elevator. She caught Cameron's eye and told her to tell the anesthesiologist to wait.

Wilson's office and the oncology ward were on four. He wasn't scheduled for the clinic today. He must have heard the gun shot.

She would wait here for him.

Staring at the pile of bloody gloves, gauze, and syringe caps, she realized her tomato-red business suit was still spotless.


	3. Chapter 3

**Title:** What Folly Reason, What Folly Hope  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Characters:** everyone, but emphasis on House and Wilson's best-buddy status with Cuddy and Cameron in supporting roles  
**Spoilers:** "No Reason"  
**Summary:** Yep, another post-"No Reason". Takes us from the last scene to the inevitable 'so, House, how's the ---'.

Moving right along with this one. Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

**Chapter 3**

Wilson hurried from his office, apologizing profusely to the couple he'd been discussing treatment options with. Normally he would never leave a new patient in the middle of the initial diagnostic session, but they had been as alarmed as he was by the two gun shots and when his pager went off, confirming the sick twists in his gut, they seemed almost relieved that he was going to deal with the situation. How they thought he'd be able to protect them was beyond him—if they thought that at all: his mind was spinning around anything it could find to keep him from panicking—but they'd seemed relieved nonetheless. Which was saying a lot for a thirty-nine-year old with stage four lung cancer and his pregnant wife.

Oblivious to the stricken stares of everyone he passed on the fourth floor, he forced himself not to look through the glass walls of the Diagnostics department—but he couldn't help noticing the lone security guard standing by the door.

It was a crime scene now.

Further down the hall another security guard stood next to a pool of blood near the stairs. He knew that wasn't House's blood—he and his patient had heard the second round of shots too—but it rattled him nonetheless. He jogged past the guard and down the stairs before the guard could stop him.

The small, cynical, Housian part of his mind forced the rest of him to admit that he'd seen this coming for years. He yelled at it to shut up. It just laughed.

He nearly collided with Cuddy, who stepped out of the way just in time.

He stopped short at the steady whine of a heart monitor and the sight of a bloody E.R. team shocking an unconscious form. Everything about the picture was wrong: Cuddy wouldn't be standing over here if House was dying over there, and Wilson knew that House's fellows would have been called and would be near him if not working on him, but for a moment he believed that the flatliner was House and his knees went weak, chest caving in when he tried to breathe.

Cuddy's hand was on his shoulder before he realized it. She spoke softly to him.

"He's in the O.R.," she said. "He should be fine."

Wilson glanced at her disbelievingly, panting from his run down the stairs and the shock of thinking House was dead.

"He requested ketamine," she continued. "As an anesthetic."

Wilson, still panting, croaked out, "What?"

"I wanted your opinion before I okayed it," she said.

Wilson shook his head slowly, completely lost. "He was conscious?"

Cuddy nodded. "Cameron said he asked for it before he passed out."

Wilson took a deep breath, holding his hands up. "Wait," he said. "Tell me what happened first."

Cuddy indicated that they should head upstairs. While they went she related what she knew and reminded him of the article he'd found.

"I remember," Wilson said, cutting her off as they strode down the surgical floor. "But he doesn't need it now, for the surgery," he pointed out. "We could wait until he's out of surgery—or until he wakes up, for that matter."

Cuddy nodded, kicking herself for not thinking of that first. When it came to his health, House's wishes had taken on the status of divine law following the mishap with his leg. She knew she couldn't possibly be objective, not after the infarction and not when her hormones were so out of whack from twice daily fertility meds, but she expected it of herself because he'd kept her as his primary caregiver. Because he expected it of her.

"Right," she said.

Together they stepped into the non-sterile area and informed the nurse who was waiting to give him a general anesthetic—preferably one that wouldn't interact poorly with ketamine should they choose to use it post-op. Now it was in the surgeon's hands.

They withdrew from the anteroom.

"What happened before he asked for ketamine?" Wilson asked in a low voice, aware that people were staring.

"I don't know," Cuddy answered.

They looked at each other. Neither had to vocalize the means of finding that out. Together they ascended the stairs to the observation level.


	4. Chapter 4

**Title:** What Folly Reason, What Folly Hope  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Characters:** everyone, but emphasis on House and Wilson's best-buddy status with Cuddy and Cameron in supporting roles  
**Spoilers:** "No Reason"  
**Summary:** Yep, another post-"No Reason". Takes us from the last scene to the inevitable 'so, House, how's the ---'.

Apologies for the choppy style. I was reading Hemingway yesterday and the day before. Hope you like nonetheless!

* * *

**Chapter 4**

Foreman, Cameron, and Chase stood solemnly on the observation deck. They'd been shooed out of the O.R. patient prep room by a team of very capable and persistent nurses, and now they watched while surgical assistants opened trays and prepared monitors.

If this had happened a year ago—six months ago, or even three months ago before Foreman's brush with death—they'd be talking about it right now: the medicine, the event, House's strange request. But they knew each other too well and each was busy enough with his own stream of thoughts.

After a long while, Foreman spoke.

"I read this article in a small German neurological journal a while back about inducing seven-day comas with ketamine to treat chronic pain," he said.

Instead of two funny looks and an obligatory crack about House not being the only one who could read other languages, all three merely stared ahead, arms identically crossed. None of them had bothered to remove any bloody clothing yet.

"Did it work?" Chase asked, his voice slightly hoarse.

"Yeah," Foreman said. "It did."

"Doubt it would be approved for use here," Cameron commented.

All three stared ahead. They didn't need to look at each other.

"Think that's what's taking so long?" Chase asked.

"Probably," Foreman answered.

They were silent again, watching the surgical assistants idle in the room below, each one thinking with varying degrees of confidence how much better they would treat the situation than Cuddy and Wilson were. Getting House into surgery was the first priority; if he wanted a ketamine coma, he could have that later, _after _he'd survived a split jugular.

The ketamine issue settled, their thoughts wandered to other places. It was Foreman, again, who broke the silence.

"You know, if that guy hadn't known you weren't House, you might be the one down there," he said.

He didn't have to look at Cameron. They all knew who he was addressing.

"I'm aware of that," Cameron said, just barely stiff in response to Foreman's just barely condescending tone.

"He knew your name," Chase pointed out. "Wonder how long he planned it."

No one had to ask why the shooter would do such a thing. They'd seen House do too many harmful things to patients and patients' loved ones for this to be outside the realm of possibility. Still, they were all unnerved by that fact that someone had just walked in and shot their boss. None of them had expected that a medical practice in an Ivy League college town would ever be so dangerous.

"What did House do to him that he'd come back and shoot him?" Foreman wondered aloud.

"We'll never know unless House tells us."

All three turned at the sound of Cuddy's voice.

"The shooter is dead," she said.

Both she and Wilson looked like they'd just been to his funeral.

"Did you give him the ketamine?" Cameron asked as the three juniors moved down to make room for their seniors.

"Not yet," Cuddy said. "We're going to wait until he comes out of this first."

Five heads turned just so at movement in the room below. The patient had arrived.

All five were silent for a moment, Cuddy and Wilson having adopted the fellows' solemn cross-armed stance.

Once he was assured that House still wasn't dead yet, Wilson spoke.

"What happened?" he asked.

Cameron, Chase, and Foreman related the event in broken snippets, constructing a narrative out of what each remembered most clearly. How House had been describing a patient he was interested in. (Even Foreman refrained from including any words like 'bullying,' 'torturing,' or 'screwing with'.) How a balding, well-dressed, forties-ish man came in and asked for House.

"He said he'd been a patient of House's," Chase said.

Below, the surgical team had just arrived. The surgeon positioned himself next to House's neck.

"House tried to dismiss the guy and he pulled out a gun and shot him," Foreman said.

"He pointed it at us and told us not to go near him," Cameron said.

"Then he got closer and tried shoot him in the head," Chase added.

"House jerked out of the way," Foreman said. He glanced over from the surgery to Cuddy and Wilson. "It was close."

"There was a lot of blood," Cameron said, "and the force of the bullet—something—knocked him out. The shooter must have thought he'd gotten what he wanted because he nodded at us like he was thanking us for not stopping him, put the gun away, and walked out."

"I called security and the E.R.," Foreman said, "and they worked on him."

Chase and Cameron nodded almost imperceptibly to themselves and, the narrative concluded, all three fell silent again.

Below, a surgical assistant dropped the first blood-soaked piece of gauze into a receptacle while another hung a fresh pint of blood.

"He was unconscious the whole time?" Wilson asked.

"Semi-conscious," Chase said.

"He started dreaming before the E.R. team arrived," Cameron said. "Rapid-eye movement and he was mumbling but he didn't respond to stimuli."

"We weren't trying too hard to wake him up, though," Foreman added.

"When did he wake up?" Cuddy asked.

"As soon as we got to the E.R.," Cameron said.

"And all he said was that he wanted ketamine?" Wilson asked.

"That was it," Cameron said. "Just to tell you," she glanced at Cuddy, "that he wanted ketamine."

There were silent again for a long time, watching the surgeon repair the vessel. Bandage after bloody bandage filled the metal bowl next to the table. At one point, House's blood pressure dropped into the danger zone and they watched anxiously as an assistant squeezed the saline bag until it stabilized.

Once the scene returned to normal, Chase spoke.

"Any I.D. on the shooter?"

"Security's working on it," Cuddy answered.

Silence again for a moment. Then Foreman added, "He knew who Cameron was."

Cuddy and Wilson both glanced over at Cameron.

"I've never seen him before," she said.

They kept looking at her, asking for more.

"He came in and asked for House," she said. "House said something like 'the skinny brunette' and looked at me, and the shooter said 'no, that's Doctor Cameron'."

They were quiet again, processing and reprocessing this information about the shooter.

"Guess it doesn't matter since he's dead," Chase commented.

Then, later, because Chase was the intensivist and took the lead on trauma cases, he said: "Anyone call his parents?"

"They're in Japan," Wilson answered.

Not as used to Wilson's sometimes strangely intimate knowledge of House's affairs as Cuddy was, the three fellows shifted slightly.

Wilson took the hint. "He said the trip to Europe reminded them that they didn't hate traveling as much as they thought they did after all. They lived there for a year or two when he was a kid."

Perhaps it was saying too much, but Wilson was unaccustomed to having his friends shot and as lame and wrong as it felt and sounded in the grim atmosphere of the observation area, he needed to say it. Somehow, reminding himself that House had once been a child made the person on the table surrounded by blue-cloaked figures at once more distant and crushingly closer.

He shifted his weight to his right side. "I'll call them later."

It was a long surgery to the five doctors watching from above. Wilson excused himself to call Brown to deal with the patient he'd left in the middle of a consultation. When he came back, Cuddy had convinced the three fellows to clean themselves up.

"Abby at the desk said your assistant called," Wilson said, resuming his cross-armed posture next to Cuddy. "P.R. wants to you to sign off on a press release as soon as possible. I told her to tell them you'd be down when you could."

"Thanks," she said.

She'd been hesitant to broach a certain subject with him, but the tact and consideration he'd just shown decided it. She wasn't close to him like she was to House—if close was the right word—but he was the next best choice.

"Ah," she began, "I wanted to talk to you about something House has been doing for me…"

Wilson listened while she told him about her plan to have a child. Suddenly he understood why House had been so certain it wasn't a date, and why he'd dropped the subject cold after only two days of taunting. At once he had more respect for House for keeping her secret (and a better understanding of the strange relationship between House and Cuddy) and felt a little slighted by both of them.

"Sure," was all he said when she asked him to administer the injections. Yesterday he would have found this oddly arousing. Now it was just something he would do.

They fell into silence again.

The three junior doctors returned, Foreman and Cameron sans lab coat, Chase in a scrub top, and together they watched as the surgeon started on House's abdominal wound.

Then it was time to go wake House up.


	5. Chapter 5

**Title:** What Folly Reason, What Folly Hope  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Characters:** everyone, but emphasis on House and Wilson's best-buddy status with Cuddy and Cameron in supporting roles  
**Spoilers:** "No Reason"  
**Summary:** Yep, another post-"No Reason". Takes us from the last scene to the inevitable 'so, House, how's the ---'.

* * *

**Chapter 5  
**

House was in the middle of a very pleasant dream in which he was a giant cockroach and he mercilessly crushed everyone who said 'Kafkaesque' to him with an insectic roar of 'You don't know what that means!' when everything suddenly became heavy with the familiar swirl of drugs and pain.

He gulped in a surprised breath and blinked up to find the entire world watching him.

Then he noticed the surgical recovery room behind the five of them and cursed in a raspy voice.

"What the hell?"

Cuddy started in on the patient orientation questions. House ignored her.

"You didn't give me the ketamine," he said.

"Not yet, no," Cuddy answered.

"Did you think I was joking?"

He coughed, throat irritated from the respirator, and noticed his team shifting uncomfortably behind Cuddy and Wilson.

"Run along kids," he said. "Daddy needs to talk to Auntie Wilson and Uncle Cuddy alone."

Three petulant faces greeted him. They didn't move until Cuddy glanced at them.

"They probably saved your life," Cuddy said when they were gone. "You could be a little less rude. If you'd been alone—"

"Why didn't you give me ketamine?" House interrupted.

"We wanted to make sure you lived to bug us about it first," Wilson quipped.

House tried to glare at him. He felt himself sinking back under the weight of the anesthetic. He needed them to do what he said pronto, dammit.

"There are almost no side-effects," he began.

"Why now, House?" Cuddy interrupted.

"Because I'd rather sleep through all this." He gestured weakly at his bandaged abdomen.

Wilson cocked his head in that special way that meant he thought House had a point.

"Not good enough," Cuddy said.

Now that she'd had some time to think, House wanting an experimental procedure done on himself—one that required a week-long coma and carried the risk of pneumonia and kidney infection, both of which would be higher with him just out of surgery—wasn't okay. She needed to know why.

House glowered at her through a cloud of anesthesia.

"It's been worse lately," she said. "How much worse?"

Normally, House would evade a direct question on this topic, but he was in serious danger of losing the battle with sleep right now, so he settled for honestly. Evasive honesty.

"A lot," he said.

"Then we should get an MRI first to see if anything is going on," she said.

"No, you should go ahead and do this," House argued.

Cuddy leaned in, her expression becoming earnest. She knew he was holding something important back. She had to know.

"Tell me."

And then House did something he rarely did: he took a risk on another person. Two other people, in fact, but he always took risks on Wilson, so he didn't really count. This was the fastest way to get things done and if they wanted to yell at him later, they could do that. But he was betting his relationship with both of them on the belief that they would do the right thing before they indulged their anger.

"It's been a lot worse," he said. "Vicodin doesn't even touch it on some days, no matter how much I take. So I've been taking morphine. But even it doesn't last like it should."

He could see that they were shocked, but they both hid it well.

"How long?" Wilson asked. Cool, calm, professional. If it was getting to him, he would let it get to him later.

"Past few weeks," House said. "Only when I needed it." He looked over to Cuddy. "It got better after you tricked me with the placebo—it's not psychological. It's been getting worse for the past two months."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Cuddy asked, more disappointed than angry.

"You wouldn't have believed me," he said to both of them. "I didn't come to work high—I worked through it when I had to. Now can we stop arguing and do this?"

Whether they were more shocked by his sudden honesty or the fact that he'd been suffering so much because he didn't think they'd believe him, neither could tell. Watching them, House couldn't tell either. But they made the decision in one glance.

"Yes," Cuddy said. "We can."

House settled back. "About time," he grumbled.

He closed his eyes to let the anesthetic take him away and just as he was drifting off, he remembered something.

He squinted tiredly at Wilson. "Feed Steve will you?"

"Already thought of it," Wilson said with a brave smile. He risked a brief pat on the arm—much less than he wanted to do, but House wouldn't like even this.

The last thing House heard before sleep tugged him down was Wilson's voice.

"See you in a week."


	6. Chapter 6

**Title:** What Folly Reason, What Folly Hope  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Characters:** everyone, but emphasis on House and Wilson's best-buddy status with Cuddy and Cameron in supporting roles  
**Spoilers:** "No Reason"  
**Summary:** Yep, another post-"No Reason". Takes us from the last scene to the inevitable 'so, House, how's the ---'.

Re: length. I know the first part said 1/5, but it's going to be more than 5 chapters/parts. Let's say this is 6 out of about 9 or 10 chapters.

This chapter gave me fits. I wrote and re-wrote and re-wrote and wrote again. I hope it works.

* * *

**Chapter 6  
**

By the time Wilson pulled against the curb outside 221B and cut the engine, it was almost nine o'clock and he was exhausted…and he still hadn't called House's parents. House could foot the bill for an international call, he'd decided.

He fiddled with his key ring, separating the key to the outer door from the key to House's apartment itself, and blew out a tired breath. House had been shot around 10:30 in the morning. By noon he was settled in a private room with a machine breathing for him and a ketamine drip keeping him under.

But that had only been the beginning of the nightmare.

As the head of his department, Wilson had been responsible for briefing his staff and fielding questions, worries, complaints, and even a few thinly-veiled threats against House. The patients were upset; their families were upset; and when patients and their families became upset, nurses and doctors who had to deal with them became upset. All of them came to Wilson.

And then there was the press. Apparently it was a slow news day because once someone let slip that Wilson was House's best and only friend, he was mobbed by reporters who were fishing for some angle on the story. Why would a former patient shoot a highly respected doctor? Did the doctor abuse the patient? Was the doctor known for abusing patients? Was a massive cover-up afoot at the best hospital in three counties? As Dr. House's closest friend, he was in the best position to judge his character and would he please make a comment for the 6 o'clock broadcast?

Like Chase had said: Vultures.

Turning the key to the outer door in the lock, Wilson's mind flitted to the beer he'd had with Cameron, Foreman, and Chase.

Cuddy had ordered the three of them to schedule a session with a counselor as per hospital policy for witnesses to violent acts and take the rest of the day off. Cameron protested feebly to Wilson that she wanted to stay but her colleagues convinced her that lunch and a mid-afternoon drink were what she needed. Wilson hadn't been too surprised when she'd called him exactly at five o'clock to invite him to join them, but he had been a little surprised at how quickly he'd accepted—and by that time, how badly he needed to talk to someone who would understand how hard this day had been for him.

"Cuddy still have her bodyguards when you left?" Foreman asked after Wilson's beer arrived.

Wilson nodded.

"Vultures," Chase sniffed. "One of them followed me to my car."

Cameron and Foreman curled upper lips at the memory of the press.

"They wanted to know if House ever treated me differently because of my race," Foreman said with a disgusted smile.

The others chuckled.

"I got the same question," Cameron put in. "Did Doctor House ever sexually harass me?" She snorted a laugh.

Foreman turned to Chase with his eyebrows raised.

Chase held his hands up. "You Yanks could care less about a foreigner getting harassed." He grinned.

Only the four of them (and Cuddy) knew how impossible those questions were to answer. All they could do was laugh about it.

Wilson sighed happily as the laughter died down. It felt good to laugh.

"He's no saint," Wilson remarked and swigged his beer.

The other three nodded knowingly, chagrined but also wistful. House didn't deserve to get shot.

They sat quietly for a moment, drumming fingers on the bar, shifting on stools, running hands through hair. Thinking.

"It'll die down in a few days," Wilson said.

Cameron glanced up at him, listlessly stirring the cherry in her drink with a cocktail sword.

"Did you say anything to them?" she asked.

Wilson shook his head. "Lawyer's orders," he said.

Chase ran a hand through his hair again. "Any news on the shooter?"

Wilson nodded. "But I don't know anything about it yet," he clarified. He looked at each of them in turn. "You booked your sessions?"

All three affirmed that they had.

"I guess it's okay to come in to work tomorrow," Foreman said, his voice rising at the end to make it a question.

"Office is still a crime scene," Chase said.

"Were the police done with it when you left?" Cameron asked Wilson.

Wilson shrugged. "No one was there," he said, "but it was cordoned off." He swiped a contemplative smudge through the sweat on his glass. "Cuddy would probably rather you take the day off. The press might still be around."

None of them looked convinced, so Wilson shrugged again and added, "Call her in the morning; see what she says."

He answered a few more questions, finished his beer, and announced that he had to leave. He reminded them that they should call someone if they needed to talk; that they shouldn't wait; that they should try the night attending in psych if they needed to.

He'd had just enough time to run home and shower before he had to pick up Cuddy for dinner. Because neither of them should be alone and he knew she wouldn't stop working unless someone made her.

He shut the outer door and cocked his head. She really was House's twin.

Now his mind flitted to her.

He knew that however much trouble his department had given him today, she'd had it so much worse. The president of the university himself had issued a statement to the press about the incident; Wilson could only imagine what the phone conversation between him and Cuddy was like. He saw her once in the hall after they spoke to House in the recovery room: hounded by reporters, P.R. people, police officers, hospital lawyers, frantic doctors and nurses threatening to quit if House wasn't fired, angry donors and their representatives threatening to withdraw support unless the matter was investigated to their satisfaction, and even the occasional angry parent or loved one of a patient who wanted to tell her off about security in the hospital, she looked strained and exhausted. Long-standing complaints that had nothing to do with the incident bubbled to the surface and released their noxious odors. House's getting shot was apparently directly related to the quality of the meatloaf in the cafeteria and the overtime pay policy for orderlies. If Cuddy got through this with her sanity intact, Wilson would be amazed.

He was proud of himself for coming up with the dinner idea and being forward about it. Though it had been a little odd asking her out (well, not _out_, he knew, but it still felt weird) in front of House.

Pausing in front of House's apartment door, he smiled a little, amused at the circumstances which forced them into his room, whispering like they were doing something wrong. Because the only way for the two of them to be alone so he could administer her fertility injection was, ironically—or perhaps appropriately—through House.

House had only been settled for half an hour when a cameraman was caught trying to get footage of the wounded doctor through the glass wall of his room. They drew the blinds. Fifteen minutes later another cameraman was caught trying to sneak into his room. After that, a guard had been stationed outside his door and only three nurses, House's fellows, and Wilson and Cuddy were authorized to enter the room.

Given how hard everything had been all day, it was remarkably easy for him and Cuddy to enter House's room together without arousing any suspicions.

They watched House sleep for a moment, grotesquely pale in the fluorescent room. Cuddy thanked him in a whisper as he pushed the plunger.

"What time do you think you'll be done here?" he whispered back after he gave her a wad of cotton to cover the stick.

She sighed heavily and shook her head. _I don't know_.

The ketamine would augment any sensation—auditory, visual, tactile, anything—and could produce nightmarish hallucinations, so contact with House was limited to only that which was strictly necessary. The nurses would only touch him to check his vitals, change dressings, and do any other absolutely necessary things, and they wouldn't talk to him. No one would talk to him for a week. Wilson avoided thinking about how inhuman it seemed. Instead, he kept his medical knowledge in the forefront of his mind: House would be better off with no contact.

So when he whispered back to Cuddy while she held the wad of cotton in place, he hoped he wasn't contributing to House's troubles.

"I'll call you at seven," he whispered. "No matter how busy you are, you're going to take an hour to eat something."

He didn't add "with me"; he didn't need to.

He was pleased that she hadn't tried to protest. She simply nodded, tried to smile, and they both left their unconscious friend to heal.

Later, at dinner, which didn't mean anything because Wilson picked a mid-scale, non-romantic restaurant that served good, hearty food and Cuddy followed him in her car, he listened while she talked and she listened while he talked. She had more to talk about and he'd already talked to House's team, so he made sure he did more listening than talking. She told him what they'd learned about the shooter. It was a story Wilson was all too familiar with: House bullied the guy until he told the truth, the guy's wife found out something she shouldn't have found out, she divorced him, etc. The complaint he'd filed with the hospital stated in no uncertain terms his feelings for one Gregory House. He had no history of mental instability, but the police said that he'd quit his job last week and put all of his affairs in order.

"He knew he'd be caught or killed," Cuddy said as she wound pasta around her fork. "He was prepared for both."

Wilson just shook his head and cut into the chicken breast on his plate.

Cuddy swallowed and began pushing pasta around, a far-away expression on her face. Wilson watched and ate, waiting for her to say whatever was on her mind.

She sighed. "I don't know if I just didn't notice—or if I was ignoring it—" She looked up at him. "I don't think I was ignoring it, but when he came to me a few months ago after Stacy left—"

Wilson nodded sympathetically. "That was psychological," he said, re-affirming what they both already knew. "He did get better after that."

Her eyes remained steadily fixed on his. "Did you notice it?"

Wilson sighed and put his fork down too. "I've been thinking about that all day," he said. "I knew it had gotten worse—especially over the last two weeks—sometimes he could barely walk—but other days he seemed fine…and he didn't say anything." Wilson shook his head. "I didn't think about it. He's always had good days and bad days."

Her gaze was earnest. He could see exactly how badly she felt about this.

"Would you have believed him?"

Wilson shook his head again. "I don't know," he said. "Probably not."

"I don't think I would have either," she said. "Not after the last time."

Wilson raised an eyebrow.

Cuddy told him how House had been so convinced his pain was real after Stacy left that he'd dropped his pants to show her the scar. How he was more upset than she'd seen in him a very long time. How even then she'd known it really was in his head.

Wilson just shook his head. "I guess the fact that he didn't complain about it should have been a clue, but…" He sighed. "I thought he was fine. As fine as he ever is, anyway."

Cuddy nodded and returned to her pasta.

"I hope this works," she said after a while. "Even if it only helps a little…"

Wilson nodded, spearing steamed broccoli.

He smiled slightly. "At least he'll stay put while he heals," he said. "He was right about that."

Cuddy nodded vehemently with a snort. "No kidding."

"Do you think the insurance company will fight hard over covering the procedure?"

"The lawyers are working on that," Cuddy said after a swallow wine. She shook her head with a wry smile. "As much trouble as she caused, I do wish we had Stacy for this one."

Wilson smiled, bobbing his head in agreement, and stabbed a grill mark on his chicken breast.

They split the check and Wilson urged her to call him if she needed to talk tonight. He knew neither of them would get much sleep.

"I'm going to go check on his rat," Wilson said to her in the parking lot. "I'll call his parents while I'm there."

Her expression told him that she knew he'd be looking for drug paraphernalia and that she thought it was right thing to do. That House would expect it. That by telling them about his morphine use, he was encouraging them to look. That he wouldn't count it as betrayal—and if he did, that she'd knock some sense into him.

He watched as she drove away, then pointed his car toward House's place.

Scraping his key in the lock of House's door, he was happy about the new intimacy between Cuddy and himself. He was also a little sorry that there was nothing sexual in it but smart enough to know that it was for the best.

Inside House's apartment, he felt for the light switch, knowing just where it was but still having to feel his way.

Nothing should surprise him after the harrowing day he'd had, but the state of House's apartment managed to do just that—and to make him feel like a dog for not believing House when he saw all the signs that House's leg was bothering him more.

The congealing food on the coffee table, the pile of clothes against the fireplace, and the smell of trash that needed to go to the dumpster a week ago made his heart sink.

House wasn't neat, not by a long shot, but he managed to keep his place fairly clean. Not anymore: mold was growing on some unrecognizable foodstuff on the coffee table. Even the arrangement of the furniture, with much of it pushed against walls to make a track for pacing, proved that House's leg really was worse.

All of this he took in over the course of a few seconds. What he was really looking for he found just as quickly. There, on the coffee table near the moldering food, was a half-empty vial and four used syringes.

Shoulders sinking, he asked himself if he'd really become so inattentive that House didn't even feel the need to hide his new habit.

Or did House want him to find out? Was House hoping that he'd stop by unannounced and see the evidence?

And if House hadn't been shot today, how long would he and Cuddy have let him suffer before something else happened that forced them to see what was right under their noses?

He felt the guilt he'd been suppressing all day kick in.

House knew what he was doing, Wilson reflected as he began gathering old dishes. He wouldn't overdose. And House said he'd never come to work high. Wilson believed him when he said that. But…Jesus Christ, his best friend had been shooting up morphine and he hadn't even noticed!

Steve McQueen squeaked happily when Wilson entered the kitchen with the dirty plates. He found Steve standing on his hind legs, paws gripping the wire cage and nose twitching whiskers frantically back and forth when he turned on the light. He had to give it to House: the rat had personality.

Whatever shape House may be in, he always took care of that rodent, Wilson though as he disposed of the dishes. Crossing the island to Steve's cage, he noted that Steve had some food left in his bowl and half a bottle of water. House hadn't neglected to feed him this morning. In fact, Steve's cage was cleaner than House's apartment.

Wilson smiled a little at House's fondness for the rat as he filled Steve's bowl and changed his water. Steve watched him eagerly, happy to have a human around. Wilson wondered how much time House spent playing with the little creature. Steve seemed more starved for affection than for rat pellets. He imagined House talking to the rat while he made dinner, telling him goodnight and good morning, staring at him while he played.

Wilson remembered coming home one day when he was living with House to find Steve perched on House's shoulder, nibbling a peanut and watching TV with his owner. He'd been pretty annoyed at House letting a rat run around his apartment and Steve had gone back in the cage from then on. Now he wondered if the first thing House did when he got home was let Steve run up his arm and perch on his shoulder. If he carried the rat around and talked about his day.

Sorry to leave the rodent alone, Wilson moved his cage from the kitchen to the coffee table so Steve could see watch him clean. After five minutes of keeping Wilson in his eye line, Steve returned to the business of being a rat, gnawing hungrily on a fresh pellet from his food bowl.

Wilson kept his mind empty while he cleaned. He liked to clean for that reason: sorting laundry, taking the trash out, wiping off kitchen counters—all were mindless tasks with a beginning and an end, and they were not shameful.

Half an hour later, House's living room and kitchen were no longer a biohazard and Wilson was lying on the couch rolling one of the syringes back and forth with his thumb and forefinger while Steve napped in his cage. He couldn't properly dispose of medical waste here and he didn't want to just throw the evidence away.

At length, he decided he'd leave it and got up to search for the name or number of the hotel House's parents were staying in.

He found it in record time—just fifteen minutes—and stared at the sleeping Steve for a moment before he dialed the front desk.

"Hilton Osaka," a cheery, Japanese-inflected voice answered, "how may I direct your call?"


	7. Chapter 7

**Title:** What Folly Reason, What Folly Hope  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Characters:** everyone, but emphasis on House and Wilson's best-buddy status with Cuddy and Cameron in supporting roles  
**Spoilers:** "No Reason"  
**Summary:** Yep, another post-"No Reason". Takes us from the last scene to the inevitable 'so, House, how's the ---'.

This chapter took a long time to write. I hope it was worth the wait!

If any of House's dreams make you unhappy, I apologize and hope I can duck any stones you might throw. ;)

* * *

**Inside**

House skimmed back and forth between hallucination and dream. The only difference was that each hallucination began the same way: he woke up from dreaming.

He woke up exhausted to the high whine of the hair dryer. He'd only just gotten to sleep an hour ago judging from the clock staring back at him.

Rolling onto his back while the whine continued from the bathroom, he thought about the dream he'd just had.

Someone had shot him. In the abdomen and the neck. He rubbed his upper right quadrant: it hurt a little.

He sniffed into the pillow he'd just put over his head to stop the high whine: maybe he was getting appendicitis and he could stay home today.

He let his arms fall limp over the pillow on either side of his head to mash it against his ears. Damn Wilson and his preening.

He thought about the dream again. Someone he didn't recognize had walked into his office and shot him while the kids watched mouths agape. The first shot ripped through his abdomen. Then time burst like spots in front of his eyes and he was twisting away from another loud noise, and he was waking up under blurred moving lights with so much pain in his gut and head and his pants wet with warm piss and he couldn't move because he was strapped down and he heard the kids talking and another gruff male voice at his head and he was saying something about ketamine that felt like the most important thing in the world and he felt like vomiting, and then he was groggy and sick while a masked person told him to count back from ten and he was sure this time they were going to take his leg and he panicked, and then he was suddenly awake again and Wilson and Cuddy and Chase and Cameron and Foreman were all there and everything was white and he felt floaty and drugged and dizzy and he asked again about ketamine because it was the most important thing in the world and he thought about Steve and—

He groaned into the pillow, remembering that he needed to feed Steve this morning. Damn rat. Maybe Wilson would do it.

The hairdryer whined on in the bathroom. He returned to the dream.

Steve. He thought about Steve. The dream shifted and he'd had to put Steve in a coma because the poor rat had a tumor in his liver and he needed to sleep through the pain of having it excised and chemo and radiation. Steve's final squeaks had run into the whine of the hairdryer. That was when he'd woken up. He remembered now.

Finally the hairdryer stopped and he heard Wilson bang it against the sink. Clumsy.

As much as he wanted his morning sleep back, he liked the food Wilson cooked. He'd never eaten so well. And Wilson was generally good company, even if the apartment was too small to house two grown men comfortably. Some part of him was very amused at living the Oscar/Felix dynamic in full color.

He heard Wilson trying to be quiet as he opened the bathroom door.

The apartment was definitely too small.

But his mouth watered as he thought of the macadamia nut pancakes he'd have later when he got up and besides, he was feeling sleepy again, even if his stomach hurt worse now.

* * *

**Friday**

Wilson knocked lightly on Cuddy's office door.

They'd found it was easiest to determine a time in the morning and afternoon for the injections so they wouldn't have to juggle each other's schedules. They mixed it up: sometimes Cuddy's office, sometimes Wilson's, sometimes an exam room in the clinic, sometimes one of the less-frequented bathrooms. Between them, they had an excellent knowledge of which rooms were free and when. Wilson hadn't been at all surprised to learn that House just showed up when he pleased or paged her to various parts of the hospital.

House. Still asleep. Running a mild fever from a mild case of sepsis caused by the nicked bowel which was responding well to treatment. His parents would be arriving tomorrow.

Cuddy waved him in. He leaned against the door once it was shut.

"How are you holding up?" he asked.

"I could use about a week of sleep," Cuddy said without looking up from her work, "but otherwise I'm okay."

Her pen paused over the piece of paper and she looked up at him. Naked. Honest.

"I'll feel a lot better when he's back here avoiding the clinic and making my life hell again," she said.

Wilson nodded and smiled a little, approaching her desk and seating himself in front of her.

This was the first time they'd really had to breathe since he'd taken her to dinner the night House was shot. Yesterday was all about damage control. He'd only seen her twice: once for the morning injection, once for the afternoon injection. She'd been coming and he'd been going, or vice versa, and there was no time to talk. Now it was Friday afternoon and even the buzzards from the local paper had knocked off early. Wilson was keeping clippings in his office, hoping to dole them out one at a time as rewards for good behavior when House woke up and tried to do too much too soon. House would undoubtedly be pleased to see what the press had done with his story. Wilson was pleased with it himself, insofar as each story seemed more outlandish than the one before it. And anything that made him laugh right now was a very good thing.

Cuddy finished what she was doing and put her pen down. She leaned forward, hands clasped, in what was her administrative pose.

"How much morphine did you find?" she asked.

"Two thirty milliliter vials. Concentration is fifteen milligrams per milliliter. Looks like he's doing between five and seven milligrams at a time. And one of the vials is almost half-empty, so if we say it's been three weeks and it was full when he got it, that's about twice a day depending on how much he's really doing at a time."

Cuddy winced at the amount, shaking her head.

Wilson nodded sympathetically at her reaction. "But with a short half-life, that's once when he gets home and once when he goes to bed."

"Two times too much," Cuddy muttered.

She ran the math in her head and shook it slowly, staring at her blotter.

"He can't have been doing that much," she said, looking up at Wilson with a pained expression. "Surely we would've noticed…"

"Maybe he's not doing that much," Wilson said with a shrug. "Maybe he's had them for a long time and he's used before. There's no way to tell unless he tells us."

Cuddy made a frustrated, unhappy face. "It's not even worth testing him now."

Wilson nodded, lips pursed. "He wouldn't like that. Not after he told us."

Cuddy sighed and nodded. Spotting the syringe in Wilson's hand, she stood and began closing the blinds. Wilson helped.

"His parents are coming in tomorrow?" she asked as Wilson pushed the plunger home.

"They're due in the morning," Wilson said.

"Thanks for taking care of that," Cuddy said. "And this," she added as she fixed her skirt.

Wilson shrugged: no problem. "Are you doing anything tonight?" he asked easily. There relationship had changed so much in the past three days that he didn't even think twice about asking.

But she did, apparently, because she gave him a look that said she was flattered but he was barking up the wrong tree.

"Nothing like that," Wilson said with a wave of his hand.

Cuddy tilted her head to the side, still suspicious.

"It's Friday. I'm alone tonight and unless you're doing something, you're alone too," Wilson said plainly. He half-shrugged. "Why be alone? Especially now?"

One side of her mouth curled up into a smile, but she was still unconvinced.

"I like to cook," Wilson said. "It's hard to cook for just one person. So what do you like to eat?"

Still unconvinced.

Wilson waved a hand again. "I promise nothing funny and I'll be gone by nine. Ten if you want me to do the dishes." He smiled. "I can tell you House's ten different strategies for avoiding housework. Some of them are very creative."

Cuddy paused to consider it, looking at the air for a moment. Then she looked back at Wilson. He was right: why be alone? Especially now.

She smiled, just a little shyly. "Okay."

* * *

He woke up in the driver's seat of his mother's '76 Caprice Classic to Cuddy's hand on his chest.

She was smiling at him. "You dozed off."

He sat up, adjusting himself in the seat.

"Up early today," he said, reaching across the seat to put a hand on her shoulder. "SAT this morning."

"College boy," she said with a decidedly-un-Cuddy-ish snicker.

She didn't look younger than thirty, but he knew he was seventeen.

She settled back in the passenger's seat, letting him rub her neck while her hand traveled over his chest. A view of some nameless little town with a military installation spread out below them.

"So what do you want to do when you get out of school?" she asked lightly.

"Dunno," he said, concentrating hard on choosing the right moment to move his hand south.

She'd liked the movie and dinner, and the cat-like expression on her face told him that he was finally going to get some action. Good thing, too: he didn't want to be the only guy still a virgin at graduation.

"Think I'll be a doctor," he said. "They make a ton of cash."

He settled down further in the seat, his smile teasing and a little predatory. This was how to do it.

"What do you think you'll do?" he asked.

"I want to be a doctor too," she said. "Men shouldn't make all the money."

He raised an eyebrow, sensing that it was almost time.

"Oh really?" he asked. "What else shouldn't men do?"

She took the cue.

"Men shouldn't do this," she said, and suddenly his hand was where he wanted it to be.

He closed his eyes. It felt so good. He didn't move, hand completely motionless, afraid that she'd slap him if he started to feel her up, afraid that he was dreaming and he'd wake up to wet sheets if he opened his eyes. His breath fogged the air in little puffs.

"I think we should move," she said after a moment.

His eyes snapped open. "Move?"

She nodded to the backseat with another cat-like grin.

Instead of scrambling out of the driver's seat and into the backseat like he wanted, he made himself be cool. Be cool, he told himself, be cool.

He took her hand from his chest and kissed it. "Whatever the lady wants."

Soon they were in the backseat necking hungrily. He had no idea how fast she was. She seemed fast, but he just didn't have enough experience to be able to tell. He didn't know if he should start taking her clothes off or lead by example and take his own clothes off, or if that was going to happen at all. He did know, however, that he was going to disappoint her if she didn't let him cool off for a little while.

"Slow down, slow down," he said as she sucked on his neck. He pushed her gently.

"Mmm, no," she murmured against his neck.

He giggled, so elated was he that he was finally getting some.

"Seriously," he said, running his hands up her stomach to her breasts. "I need a second and—oww! Did you just bite me?"

"Mmmhmm."

First it felt good and he giggled again, but she didn't stop biting his neck. It hurt. This wasn't supposed to hurt. He knew that, if nothing else.

"Oww, come on," he complained, trying to push her off of him again.

She kept sucking his neck, licking and biting him, and he felt something warm run down the back of his shirt.

"What the—oww—come on—"

She pulled back and he saw the elongated canines red with his blood as she smiled cat-like at him.

He tried to scream but he couldn't get any air. Something was choking him. His neck throbbed.

When she bent to his neck again, he couldn't do anything to stop her.

* * *

**Saturday**

"Now, why can't we go in there again?" John House asked in a tone that was both incredulous and partially threatening.

Blythe rankled at his side. "John…"

John ignored her, eyes fixed on Cuddy.

Cuddy began explaining again.

"Any sensation at all could trigger a hallucination—"

John grunted and dismissed her by turning his attention toward the glass wall between him and his son.

Cuddy stopped talking, shivering slightly at the eerie sight of a flash of Greg House in this older man before her. She felt Wilson shift on her left. Like him, she knew John House was only barking at her because it pained his wife not to be able to hold her son's hand and caress his forehead.

"He'll be awake on Wednesday," she said in a soothing, sympathetic voice.

John grunted again. She knew what he was thinking: _it's only Saturday. Wednesday is damn far away_. She felt no sympathy for him. He hadn't had to suffer through last Wednesday or Thursday because Wilson hadn't been able to reach them until Thursday evening. She'd gathered something about a two-night trip to Kyushu and the Osaka hotel not having any contact information and then something else about not being able to get a flight until Friday afternoon from Wilson, but she'd been too busy putting out fires in the wake of the shooting to devote any time or energy to things she didn't need to know. Wilson had volunteered to corral House's parents and she was happy to leave that job to him. House was lucky to have such a devoted friend, she mused as she recalled how funny and nice he'd been last night.

Next to her, Wilson spoke in a voice that was much more convincingly sympathetic.

"He's fine," Wilson said, touching Blythe's arm gently.

Blythe smiled at him, her lower lip trembling ever so slightly.

Cuddy saw the old warhorse settle in next to his assuaged wife and knew she was finished here. She spoke the appropriate departing words of a primary physician, exchanged a glance with Wilson, and left.

Wilson in turn glanced back to a waiting nurse who came forward and quietly opened the door to House's room to shut the blinds.

Wilson turned to House's parents: his father, unsmiling, bulldoggish, jet-lagged; his mother, teary-eyed, strong, weary, also jet-lagged.

"Let's go to the cafeteria," he said.

* * *

Pain woke him with a suddenly rush of adrenaline to his heart. Good God, it hadn't hurt like this in years. Hands on his thigh, he clenched his teeth and curled around it. Breakthrough pain. He'd had some before, occasionally over the years, but never this bad. From the shadow of the moon and the feeling of the room settling, he knew he'd only been asleep an hour or so. An hour after two Vicodin and he was burning with pain.

He couldn't make a ball tight enough to help anything. A clumsy hand reached for the bottle on the night stand and through shakes and stutters opened it and dumped two more into his mouth which he desperately chewed and sucked.

Jesus. It hadn't been this bad since the day after the surgery to remove the clot.

Actually, he knew it had been almost as bad as that many times but his nervous system was used to it after five years: what was a ten then was more like a five or six now. But this was a ten on his new pain scale. He'd never hit higher than an eight on it before.

His balled body shuddered into mattress and sheets. His face was wet. His mouth tasted like Vicodin and bile. He couldn't throw up now: he needed those pills to stay put and do their work. Twenty minutes. He could throw up in twenty minutes. Jesus. He hadn't felt pain this bad in over five years.

He thought about calling 911. He hated paramedics but they would bring the level of drugs he needed right now. He had morphine secreted away but no syringes. After Stacy left him years ago he'd had breakthrough pain too, and he'd swiped a vial and a few syringes. When he ran out of them and the pain didn't come back, he didn't resupply, not overeager to get himself addicted to morphine.

God. He needed it now. He cursed himself for not having at least one syringe on hand in case of an emergency like this.

He'd give the Vicodin twenty minutes. If he didn't feel better by then, he'd call 911.

The MRI he'd had two months ago darted through his mind. Nothing had changed on it. Cuddy tricked him with saline instead of morphine. He'd been fine after that. Angry but fine.

But this. God. This wasn't psychological. He hadn't even been dreaming about Stacy. He'd been dreaming that he'd been shot by a former patient—not even shot in the leg. Shot in the stomach.

He couldn't take this pain. His body was on fire and sweating hard to cool down. He heard himself gasping, flecks of spit mixing with tears and sweat, too hot in this tight ball but too pained to move out of it. He couldn't take it. He needed something stronger.

Fifteen sweating shaking terrified minutes passed before he began to relax as the pain smoothed little by little. Eventually he could breathe again and he was cold in a wet shirt and pants.

Dizzily he got up and changed his clothes. He felt better. The pain was down to an eight, which would keep him up most nights, but right now he was too tired from the exertion of pain and too fucked up from the four Vicodin in his system to do anything but lie down on the dry side of the bed and go back to sleep.

* * *

**Sunday**

"Tell me again why you're keeping him under."

Coming from most people, this was a demand. Coming from John House, it was more of a threat not to answer, even if his gentle Kansas lilt did make the question more polite.

Wilson explained again, gently, that this was an experimental procedure House had requested. That his leg had been hurting more recently.

"And this is going to fix that," John said.

"I hope so," Wilson answered. "It's shown a great deal of promise." He looked back and forth between the two of them.

"You said his leg hurt more," Blythe began. "What does that mean?"

"It probably means he's been experiencing breakthrough pain, which is pain that gets around his regular medication," Wilson began.

He clasped his hands together in front of him. He was House's doctor right now, not his friend, and these were two frightened parents. Reality with reassurance: that was the best course of action.

"Breakthrough pain is unpredictable and doesn't always have a trigger. It's not common with the type of injury he has and he's gone years without any—" _that he's told me about_, Wilson added to himself, "so this is not something we expected." He paused to take a breath. "However, since he does have a history of ignoring the limitations placed on him, we're not too surprised." Wilson paused again, letting the information sink in. "He had an MRI a few months ago and there were no changes visible then. We're going to do another one when he wakes up." He put on his 'I'm leveling with you' expression. "But the kind of pain he experiences his not understood very well. We can't always find a physical cause for it—although his daily pain had been increasing too, and that suggests there is a physical cause. We're going to be as thorough as possible, but he knew when he asked for this procedure that we probably wouldn't find a physical cause we could fix. The treatment he's undergoing right now is the best chance he has to feel better."

A subtle shift in his posture signaled that his explanation was over. His hand itched to pick up the coffee cup in front of him, but he wouldn't appear callous in front of House's parents.

"Wouldn't it be better to just cut the whole thing off?" John asked.

Blythe rankled again. "John—"

"That's what should've happened in the first place, only he wouldn't let them," John said to Blythe.

She just shook her head.

Wilson hesitated only a moment. "That is always an option," he said. "But even if we did remove the leg now, he would probably continue to experience pain from it."

John grunted. "Phantom limb syndrome," he said.

Wilson nodded. "Not only that, but his body has become used to a certain amount of pain. His nervous system has adjusted itself to manage that pain and keep him functioning. I can't say for sure because I don't know, but there's a good chance he would still feel much of the pain he feels now."

John sniffed. "He'd never do it, anyway," he said, more to himself than to his wife or his son's friend. "Too bull-headed."

Blythe gave him a look and took his arm, asking that he tone down in front of Wilson. He merely patted her hand and smiled.

Wilson inclined his head with a smile. "He is set in his ways," he agreed.

They were silent, assimilating the information. Wilson waited patiently for more questions.

Blythe took her hand off of John's arm. "Thank you, Dr. Wilson," she said. "You've been very good to us, with us asking the same questions over and over again."

Wilson nodded his appreciation of her thanks.

"But I still wonder—" she continued, uncertain, not wanting to hear the answer again but still compelled to ask. "What if this doesn't work?"

Wilson caught himself before he shook his head. "We can still manage his pain with medication," he said simply.

"Well, what if it gets worse again?" John asked.

Now Wilson did shake his head. Just a little. "Then it might do him some good to remove the leg, depending on what kind of pain he's experiencing. Otherwise, we'd do our best to keep him comfortable."

"Keep him comfortable," John repeated.

Wilson nodded.

He saw Blythe look down quickly, but not quickly enough for either of the men to miss the tear.

"He might want to…" John began, trailing off as he squeezed Blythe's hand.

Wilson nodded grimly, all three of them understanding exactly what he might want to do.

"We're going to do all we can to avoid that," Wilson said.

* * *

He woke up to the bright glare of late summer sunshine in New England.

"House! Nap time's over! Get your bench-warming butt over here and break in the new wing."

House cursed his coach silently and picked up his stick. He followed the coach's plump finger to a boy no bigger than an eight-grader with neat brown hair who was dressed out in North Middleton High gym clothes. The boy had no equipment with him.

"Where's your stuff?" he asked.

"I didn't know there was a team," the new boy said. "They put me in gym class."

"I can see that," House said, taking his time as he looked the new boy up and down, doing his best to intimidate him.

Apparently undaunted, the new boy stuck out his hand. "James Wilson."

House eyed him warily before switching his stick to his left hand.

"Greg House," he said, giving the boy's hand a tight squeeze. "Nice to meet you, Jimmy." Contempt drizzled his voice.

House led him to the bench.

"What's so bad about gym that you want to play lacrosse?" House asked after they'd sat down.

Wilson shrugged. "What's so bad about lacrosse that you hate it?" he countered.

"I don't hate it," House said quickly, unaccustomed to freshmen with acumen.

"You look like you do."

House looked at the ground, trying to decide if it was a good idea to tell this kid something personal. He went back and forth, finally deciding that telling a measly freshman something about himself wasn't likely to do him any harm.

"My dad," he began slowly, still looking at the ground. He twirled the stick between his palms. "Either I play a sport or I get a job."

He waited for Wilson to say something or turn his attention toward practice or—_something _other than the intense, blank-faced scrutiny this little runt was leveling on him.

"So I got a job," House said, squinting in the afternoon sun as he glanced at Wilson.

Wilson still regarded him curiously.

"I guess this isn't as bad as flipping burgers," Wilson said after a while.

House shrugged. "Whatever. I'm outta here in June."

He saw Wilson lean back to look behind him at the open book bag next to the bench. He knew what Wilson would find there: _Advanced Calculus_ with a ratty, dog-eared copy of _Paradise Lost_ on top of it. He turned his head away, flushing slightly. Couldn't even impress a freshman.

Wilson glanced back at House, his face devoid of judgment. "Yeah."

"Anyway," House said uncomfortably, "the coach is a prick but the team is pretty good. I guess."

Wilson shrugged. "Gets me out of gym."

House pretended to be very interested in practice suddenly so Wilson wouldn't see the lopsided smile on his face.

A whistle blew and both of their heads snapped up at the noise.

"House!" the coach yelled. "Give him your stick."

The coached waved at Wilson.

"Get in here."

House offered Wilson his stick.

"Enjoy," he said.

Wilson gave his head a tiny shake and trotted off to the midfield.

House slumped down on the bench again and rubbed his neck. He'd fallen asleep over Herodotus last night and woke up with a crick in his neck. Maybe it was coming back.

As he watched the new kid pass the ball from player to player and dodge the defense in a series of swift, fluid motions, the tiny part of him that his disciplined upbringing refused to let him acknowledge fairly salivated over the prospect of hitting the showers with the new wing.

* * *

**Monday**

"Open your mouth and say 'ahhh,'" Cameron instructed with a smile.

The little girl stuck her tongue out. "Ahhhhh."

"Good," Cameron said to the girl's mother. "Her throat looks fine."

The mother nodded, wringing her hands.

"Okay, now I'm going to listen to the sounds your lungs make, okay?" Cameron said to the girl.

The girl nodded with a big smile.

Cameron turned again to the mother when she was done. "She's fine, Mrs. Marsten. Just a cold."

Cameron offered the girl a sugar-free lollipop and a sticker, and began giving instructions to the mother.

The mother didn't appear to be paying attention. She kept glancing at the door and wringing her hands.

"Is something wrong?" Cameron asked with practiced innocence.

The woman came closer to Cameron so her daughter wouldn't be as likely to overhear them.

"Isn't this where that doctor was shot?" she asked just above a whisper.

"Not here in this room," Cameron answered with a sickly sweet smile. "A few floors up."

She offered a piece of paper with written instructions for tending a child with a cold.

"This clinic is very safe," she said, "but if you feel differently, you're welcome to go to another clinic."

The mother took the instructions with a cold, stern expression, collected her sniffling child and left the room.

_I'm turning into House_, Cameron reflected as she finished making notes on the child's chart. _Makes sense. I _am_ doing his clinic hours, after all_.

She smiled to herself and sat for a moment before getting up to call the next person in.

* * *

He woke up and Cameron was straddling him.

Regular hospital room. He felt doped and good.

She was positioned so that she exerted the tiniest possible pressure on his groin. Every part of him was uncomfortable except for the section she hovered over.

It was wrong. He didn't want to do it.

He could smell himself, how dirty he was after days of lying in bed. Too much hair clinging to his face, making him itch and sweat. His mouth tasted like a gym bag.

But when she leaned down to kiss him and he smelled her perfume and saw everything her top wasn't even trying to cover up, he tilted his head eagerly to meet her lips.

He couldn't. Something stopped him. He choked and coughed. Something was stuck in his throat.

Oblivious to his discomfort, Cameron began gyrating her hips.

Blood rushed from his head even as he tried to claw his neck. He realized her knees were pinning his arms. He begged her with his eyes to help him. She licked her full lips, eyes glossy with desire and seduction.

Even knowing it wasn't real, he still couldn't scream.

* * *

**Tuesday**

"Good to be back," Foreman said, stretching as he balanced the chair on its hind legs.

"How can you say that?" Chase asked, stirring cream into his coffee.

Foreman looked from him to the cup of coffee. "You don't seem to mind."

"Just because House was shot in here, I have to go without caffeine?" Chase said.

"And I can't be glad to have the office back?" Foreman asked.

They both eyed each other and each conceded the other's point with a sideways nod.

"So, Florence, how's the patient?" Foreman asked, not a little smugly.

Cameron rolled her eyes. "Can't believe you haven't been to see him," she said.

Foreman let the chair come to rest on all four of its legs.

"What's there to see?" he asked. "For the first few days there were armed guards out there—the blinds are always drawn—and no one should be seeing him anyway. Not with that much ketamine in him. Not if they don't want him to have a really bad trip."

"You could at least read the chart," Cameron grumbled.

"What makes you think I haven't?" Foreman asked.

Cameron glanced at him. "Then why ask me how he is?"

Foreman shrugged. "It gives you the chance to vent."

"What have I got to vent about?" Cameron asked.

"Uh, the fact that your boss got shot," Foreman answered.

"Why should that upset me more than you?" Cameron asked.

Foreman shook his head, hands up in defense. "Forget I asked."

Chase nodded once at Cameron. "Sepsis clear up?"

Cameron shot him a look that said 'what kind of question is that?' but decided she'd only be replaying the argument with Foreman if she asked.

"On Friday," she answered. "No other complications since then."

Foreman and Chase nodded. Foreman leaned back in the chair again.

"I for one am glad to be out of the clinic," he said. "Whoever leaked our names to the press is gonna pay."

Chase sniffed. "Yeah, I got asked about a million times about it."

"Think Cuddy asked us to stay in the clinic as some bizarre form of punishment?" Foreman asked Chase.

Chase shrugged. "You're the one who was so eager to get back to work. Where else would we go?"

Foreman bobbed his head toward House's office. "Perfectly good room right there."

Chase and Cameron both looked slightly sick at the suggestion. None of them had been in House's office since the shooting. As far as any of them knew, no one had been in his office since then.

"What?" Foreman said. "He's training us to do what he does, right? The greatest compliment a student can pay to a teacher is to surpass him."

Cameron snorted. "Don't think House would appreciate that."

"Well," Foreman said as he stood up, "I'm going to see if there are any sick people out there who need a doctor."

He hiked a thumb at the hall and tilted his head: _coming with me?_

Cameron and Chase sighed a little and followed him out of the door.

* * *

He woke up in their old bed in their old apartment. He could hear her sobbing over the splash of the shower. His stomach hurt but he ignored it and jumped out of bed. No limp any more. It didn't even hurt.

He knocked on the door. "Stacy?"

The weeping continued but she didn't say 'don't come in' or 'go away,' so he turned the knob and entered the whoosh of steam, skin prickling in the warmth.

Last night came back to him. She had showed up at his door in a pitiful state. Mark had been having an affair behind her back for over a year with a student. Yesterday was the student's eighteenth birthday and they ran away together. Vegas. Somewhere like that. Stacy found the note when she woke up. She didn't know where else to go.

He didn't question why he remembered her coming to his place last night when he'd just woken up in their old bed and was now standing naked before the yellow shower curtain in their old apartment.

"Hey," he said softly. "Can I come in?"

She sniffed over the sound of the water. "I look horrible," she said in a small, hurt voice.

"Most people do when they cry in the shower," he quipped gently.

He didn't wait now. Nothing but an outright 'no' was going to stop him from stepping over the partition and taking her in his arms, which he promptly did.

He didn't know what to say, so he just held her, rocking the two of them gently back and forth under the hot water. Her neck and shoulder were smooth against his cheek. He didn't question why his face was shaved either.

"I don't think I ever stopped loving you," he said as he nuzzled her. "I wanted to, I hated you because I couldn't, but I don't think I ever did."

"I felt the same way," she said faintly.

He felt her relax against him. Her hands roamed up and down his thighs. She'd stopped crying a while ago.

"I'm sorry about what happened," he said, "but I'm glad you came to me."

He kissed her neck lightly, pleased when she leaned into him.

She said nothing in response. Instead, her hands traveled back to his butt to squeeze and pull him closer.

He was just getting into it when pain rocketed through his stomach and he slipped on the tub floor, landing on his right side. Suddenly the scar was back and Stacy was standing over him with a chainsaw.

"You never listen, Greg," she said. "That's always been your problem. Now you're going to die because of it."

Something was choking him. He couldn't scream. He couldn't scream.

* * *

**Wednesday**

He dreamed he was back in the hospital when it was happening.

He had this dream often. It was a reliable indicator of an especially painful day to come. In fact, in the waking world he knew that this was his mind expressing real-time pain while he slept. His leg hurt, but not enough to wake him up, so it manifested itself in his dreams. Simple.

This dream always took place in the time between his first surgery and the tachycardic event that stopped his heart. The time when the pain was at its worst. He screamed. Stacy cried and squeezed his hand. He begged anyone who came in the room for more morphine. He screamed again. Stacy wiped tears off of his face, not minding those on her own. She begged him to let the surgeons help him. He screamed that he wouldn't, whispered that it would get better soon.

The dream went on until Cuddy entered with a masked and gloved surgeon carrying a hacksaw and said, 'Hold him down, we're taking it.' Then he woke up, sweaty, tears on his face and pillow, teeth clenched, heart pounding, hands vice gripping his thigh, his lips forming the words 'No, please, don't.' He reached for a Vicodin and did everything he could to calm himself down before it kicked in. Slow, controlled breathing. Hands massaging the scar tissue. Thinking over and over again that it was just a dream, that dreams were just chemical reactions, that this dream just meant his leg had hurt while he slept, that he was okay, no one was cutting it off, he was fine. Unless he was exhausted, he didn't try to sleep after this dream. He got up. He paced. Eventually he put it out of his mind.

But today the dream was different. In this dream, his leg didn't hurt at all. Shadowy people clung to the walls. A bright light bathed his body and ended where it ended. He could only see their silhouettes: they were on the edge of the light where darkness began.

He knew Wilson's shadow. The hair was unmistakable. Cuddy's shadow too. And the shadows of his parents, his dad tall and meaty the way ex-military men became after a few years of inactivity, his mom worried and becoming frail (he reminded himself to get onto her again about getting a bone density scan to check for osteoporosis). A female figure; someone young. Possibly a nurse. Possibly Cameron. Scattered others he didn't recognize. Their gowns and surgical caps gave them away even in silhouette.

He was intubated. He couldn't speak. Then Cuddy's shadow moved and gloved hands disconnected the O2 supply, pulled tape off of his stubbled cheek—_oww_—and he choked and gagged and coughed while the hands pulled the tube out of him.

Desperately he breathed in. Air. He needed air. These shadows, these only people he cared about, they reminded him of onlookers at a funeral. He was in the casket.

He looked down at himself. Yes. His hands were one on top of the other resting above his groin. The grey hospital gown faded into an immaculate white suit and tie. His left foot wore a shiny white wingtip and where his right foot should have been the pants leg was flat and the right wingtip unoccupied.

He tried to scream. He tried to move his hands to confirm that his leg really was gone. But he needed to breathe in and out, and his hands were glued together in repose.

Desperately his eyes darted between figures, begging for an explanation, begging for it not to be true.

"When will he wake up?"

_Mom. Mom? Mom! Help me, mom!_

"Any time now."

_Cuddy? Cuddy, please!_

"He might sleep for a while. He's been semi-conscious for days. He could use some real sleep."

_Wilson. Wilson, you were always with me. You won't let them— You can't— Don't make me say it—Jimmy—please—_

"Semi-conscious? How is that different?"

_Dad. You probably would. But—no—you wouldn't do this to your own son. Not even you, dad. _

"When you're asleep, your body…"

_Wilson. Why are you— You can't— You won't make me beg, not you. _

Wilson's explanation of sleep states and semi-consciousness faded as the dream faded, and the glaring light with it, and the suit, and the shadows.

Quiet voices talking low in the room stayed in the gray mist around the bed and his body. He was relaxed, peaceful. Nothing hurt.

He surfaced occasionally and the babbling voices like water running focused into words and meanings. He shifted and felt something soft and warm shift with him. Gown. Blanket.

He was aware of where he was on some level. Hospital room. But not for his leg. He knew that. Because he'd been shot and because he'd asked to be put into a coma.

He knew he was coming up from anesthesia again. Cloudy first. Then liquid. Finally, reality would solidify into objects he could touch and feel with solid hands and feet and skin. But reality wasn't there just yet.

Still the gray mist and liquid voices, the silhouettes he couldn't quite make out. Cuddy's perfume, Wilson's cologne, distinct mom and dad smells older than memory, the new perfume smell of Cameron. Medical smells of latex, plastic, sterile packaging, metal, sweat, urine, illness. Dried blood faint but present. Smell told him where he was and who was there before sight or sound or touch. Smell told him he needed a bath before he felt the sticky layer of dead skin cells and pores breathing in and out to keep him cool and dry on arms, legs, face, chest, everywhere.

Voices poured in and out of molds of meaning. Clothing rustled. Breathing out of time with his own whistled and stirred the air. Medical machines beeped. Restless people shuffled. A cough. A throat cleared.

Then he woke up.


	8. Chapter 8

**Title:** What Folly Reason, What Folly Hope  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Characters:** everyone, but emphasis on House and Wilson's best-buddy status with Cuddy and Cameron in supporting roles  
**Spoilers:** "No Reason"  
**Summary:** Yep, another post-"No Reason". Takes us from the last scene to the inevitable 'so, House, how's the ---'.

Thanks for the reviews! Re: ships. No romantic ships are intended in this fic. It's Gen. But if you want to read something into it, I'm not a bit bothered—and I'm not saying I didn't put things there for you to read into. Ambiguity is fun. ;)

* * *

**Wakefulness **

House surveyed the room in one quick sweep through slowly blinking half-lidded eyes.

From the left. Cuddy, penlight in hand, mildly concerned, very professional. Wilson, hands behind his back, trying not to look nervous, flanking Cuddy. Dad, slouched in a chair directly across from him, surly and bored in the millisecond before House appraised him, then pushing himself to his feet with a pleased but guarded expression. Mom standing next to Dad, worried, tired, then beaming when his eyes crossed to her. Cameron on the right, hands on the rail of the bed, oozing concern.

Too many people he didn't want to see right now.

Cuddy flashed the penlight, tracing a red-purple stripe across his field of vision. Getting his attention.

"Doctor House, do you know where you are?"

He blanched, gagged, twisted to the left, and croaked out, "Gonna be sick."

The room leapt into action while he coughed and choked.

Cuddy glanced quickly at Cameron and grabbed an emesis basin, Wilson also glanced quickly at Cameron and scrambled toward the room's drug cabinet, and Cameron, with a quick forlorn glance at House, ushered the Houses to the door, assuring them that he was fine, this was normal after coming out of anesthesia, they would just wait outside until he was settled again.

As soon as House sensed that his parents had cleared the door, he winked at Cuddy and said to Wilson, "Don't."

Wilson stopped, seconds from administering a dose of compazine.

House grabbed the basin from Cuddy and made a show of bending over it.

"Shut the blinds," he instructed.

Cuddy moved out of his field of vision. Wilson looked confused and half-ready to push the compazine.

House met his eyes.

"I'm fine."

Then he faked a dramatic hurl.

As soon as he heard the blinds swish, he also heard Cuddy take that hands-on-hips administrative posture that meant he was in for extra clinic hours.

"You couldn't just ask them to leave?" she groused.

House straightened up, tossing the basin at Wilson.

"Nope. Can't bear to hurt poor little mommy's poor little heart."

He glanced at Wilson. "Go out there and do whatever you have to do to buy me an hour without them."

Now Wilson's hands went to his hips in self-righteous anger.

"I'm not going to lie to your parents."

House sniffed. "I didn't say lie to them. I said do whatever you have to do."

He watched Wilson and Cuddy exchange a glance; Wilson rolled his eyes and started for the door.

Cuddy came closer to the bed while House found the bed control and raised himself up to a sitting position.

"You really couldn't ask them to leave?" she said with approval and reproach both in her voice. "Instead of scaring their golden years out of them?"

"Golden years are overrated," House said, situating himself so he could lean forward.

Cuddy watched intently as he flipped the blanket off of his right side and used his hand to pull his leg up until his foot was flat on the bed. She wanted so badly to ask the question, but she knew it was better to wait for him to tell her.

"Stiff," he said to himself.

He pushed his leg back and forth to stretch the muscles. Then he bowed his head so Cuddy couldn't see him smile, smoothed his face, and flopped back against the mattress. He stretched his arms out with a tension-relieving groan and rubbed his neck.

"What have you got me on?" he asked.

Wilson let himself back in and surveyed them.

Cuddy was ready to strangle the imp in the gray gown.

"Nothing," she said, not trying at all to keep the frustration out of her voice.

Wilson approached the foot of the bed with interest, trying to tell if it had worked.

"How long ago did you stop the ketamine?" House asked.

"An hour," Cuddy answered impatiently.

House merely yawned and rubbed his neck, brushing fingers across the scar there. The stitches were gone, he noted. There was definitely something to be said for sleeping through the healing process.

"Well," he said, scooting up and fiddling with the bed rail, "I need to pee."

Wilson looked expectantly at Cuddy. "So?"

Cuddy in turn looked expectantly at House. "So?"

House glanced innocently at both of them. "So?" he echoed. "I need to pee."

He unplugged the IV—saline only, he noted—and tossed aside the oxygen cannula. He'd just gotten the bed rail down when Cuddy snapped.

"House!" she admonished, sounding almost whiny to him.

House nodded to his cane and Wilson wordlessly retrieved it.

"I feel great," he said to Cuddy, his face devoid of any emotion. "How much longer are you going to keep me here?"

Cuddy puffed out an incredulous laugh. "You were _shot_," she said.

House let Wilson hover for once as he pushed himself to his feet.

"Yeah, last week," he replied, standing slowly, wincing at the stiffness in his body. He let out a long, happy groan as he stretched his back.

"I need a shower and some grub," he said to Cuddy when he had his feet solidly under him. "Think you can arrange that, boss?"

Cuddy made the strangled scoffing noise again.

House scrunched his face and looked to Wilson. "What did you _do_ to her?" he asked.

Wilson tilted his head and gave House the 'you're being an ass' warning eye.

House ignored Wilson's reproach. "I like it," he said with a lecherous wink and stepped forward. Right foot.

Wilson was there when he stumbled. House caught himself in time and glared at the floor, both hands on the shaft of his cane.

"None of this does me any good if you let my muscles atrophy," he growled.

Cuddy sniffed. "Uh, more like you've been flat on your back for seven days with just enough calories to keep you from dropping into the double digits," she said. "You can't expect to leap out of bed as soon as you wake up."

House grumbled something to himself while he straightened up. "I'm still hungry," he complained.

He felt Cuddy and Wilson talking about him behind his back without using any words.

After a tense moment, Cuddy said, "Fine," in a tone that let both of them know it was anything but fine, and he heard her letting herself out.

Wilson shadowed him the rest of the way to the bathroom. House was grateful to him for keeping his mouth shut.

House stopped at the doorway and leaned into it, feeling a little shaky and dizzy. He took a deep breath, coughed a little, and felt better. A week flat on his back…of course he knew exactly what that would do to him. Wilson had the good sense to keep his attention somewhere else.

"I'm gonna be a while," House said to the floor. He glanced up, absolutely serious except for the twinkle in his eye. "My boys are like grapefruits."

Wilson provided the prudish too-much-information cringe House wanted—more for show than anything else—and took a step back from the door. _I'll be out here if you need me_, his face said.

House examined him briefly, got the message, and shuffled inside, pushing the door shut with his cane.

Wilson waited a moment until he heard normal bathroom noises, then crossed the room and dropped into the chair House's dad had been occupying. He couldn't help the huge, tired grin that filled his face. It worked! It had really worked! He could read House better than anyone else and he knew that House felt so good he was afraid to admit it to himself, as if it would disappear once he said the words.

By the time Cuddy returned with two nurses loaded down with fresh bedding, the gentle plashing of the shower had lulled Wilson into a light doze.

She smiled softly at the sight of him as the nurses began stripping the bed. She didn't need to have seen him twice a day for the past week to know that he wasn't sleeping well. She hadn't been sleeping well herself.

He snorted awake when she touched his shoulder.

"You should go get some real sleep," she said softly, still smiling.

Wilson blinked to clear his vision. "I will," he said.

Cuddy gave him a look that told him he _would_ get some real sleep soon or she'd do something about it, and knocked on the bathroom door.

"Whatever you're doing in there, House, finish it," she yelled over the sound of the water.

Without waiting for him to protest, she opened the door and slung a towel and a clean gown over the curtain railing.

The lewd comment they were both expecting from him didn't come, but a moment later the shower stopped.

Cuddy arched eyebrow at Wilson and didn't bother to close the door. She leaned against the door frame and watched the towel disappear, followed shortly by the gown.

The shower curtain swept aside and House eyeballed her with dripping hair, one hand against the wall for support and the other gesturing toward his cane.

"I guess a little privacy is too much to ask for," he snipped.

She noted the fatigue in his voice, the slight shake in the hand supporting him, and rather than commenting on his obvious exhaustion, simply raised both eyebrows and handed him the cane.

House took the cane with a disbelieving look. "No pithy response?"

She merely watched him, mild amusement on her face. He glared at her as best he could and slowly, carefully stepped over the retaining wall of the bathtub.

"Whatever you did while I was out, keep it up," he said to Wilson as she moved aside to let him exit.

Both of them watched him slowly cross the room.

House willingly, almost eagerly sat down on the clean bed as the nurses left. He knew Cuddy and Wilson knew how tired he was, but he didn't particularly want to say anything about it. He was, however, annoyed that Cuddy wasn't screeching at him about something. The game wasn't any fun when he was the only one playing.

He folded his hands over the cane and fixed an inquiring stare on Cuddy, who was leaning casually against the door frame again.

"Chicken soup hard to come by these days?" he asked.

"Nutrition is sending a tray up," she replied.

Wilson watched them both with a hidden smile. Playing poker with House, while very interesting, wasn't this interesting or this much fun to watch. It was good to have him back.

House took a breath and tilted his head forward and slightly sideways in his condescending yet still inquiring way.

"See, I thought, what with you being the big boss lady around here and everything, you'd be able to find someone with some Campbell's and a can opener if I gave you twenty minutes."

He drew his face in and tilted his head to the other side to express an opposite possibility.

"But I pull a Rip Van Winkle and there's a new world order when I wake up—it's understandable."

He half-winked at them. "You're only human, after all."

Cuddy uncrossed her arms and stood up. "Take a nap, House," she said. "I'll wake you up when your food arrives."

House glanced over at Wilson. "Quick, it's wearing off!" he said—without any real conviction—and leaned his cane against the night stand so he could pull his leg up and lie down.

Cuddy rolled her eyes. "I'll schedule some treadmill time for this afternoon," she said. "You can leave when you can process solid food again and you've been civil to your parents at least once. The police want to talk to you too."

House eyed her skeptically. "Nothing changes," he said.

If Cuddy didn't know better, she would have sworn he was expressing approval.

"No," she said to him with an almost unreadable expression, "nothing changes."

Both men watched her leave. House examined Wilson once she was gone.

"You know," he said.

Wilson met his gaze. "She asked me."

House grunted softly, amused and approving. "Usurper," he said.

He rolled sloppily on to the bed and lay there in a heap, feeling his muscles stretch in the happy afterglow of a hot shower. Two bullet wounds, a week of semi-consciousness, cooped up in a smelly hospital room with too much beard on his face and an empty digestive tract that ached a little, and he hadn't felt so good in years. He closed his eyes and inhaled fresh bedding.

He remembered the first dream—he knew it was a dream now—the one where he convinced himself that it was okay to feel better physically, and how Dream Wilson told him, like Real Wilson had told him when he let Stacy leave, that he defined himself into non-existence because he'd made the leg, the limp, the pain mean everything and nothing at all simultaneously, that he didn't want to feel better because if he did feel better, if he did _get_ better, he wouldn't have anything left. No more crippling pain, no more identity. But he knew, as he inhaled the washed sea-foam green hospital blanket and sheets, that if everything was relative to something else, then he was always someone outside of the pain, even if he didn't like it, because Wilson was still here, and Cuddy was still here, and Mom and Dad, and Cameron and the other two underlings.

And because he wasn't dead yet; he still had time to act; he was still breathing. For the first time in a long time, it felt good to still be breathing.

House opened his eyes. Wilson was watching him from the chair.

"Your boys all better?" Wilson asked.

"They're responding to treatment," House said, rolling on to his back now and lowering the bed so he could sleep. "Down to oranges. Repeat as necessary."

He leered in his customary fashion. Wilson sniffed dismissively in his customary fashion.

Most things didn't change. But that didn't mean change wasn't still possible.

Wilson watched and waited, knowing House would ask anything he really wanted an answer to before he let himself fall asleep. And that he needed someone to answer him.

"What happened to the guy?" House murmured after a while.

He was minutes from sleep. They both knew it. And knowing each other, they'd both ignore it for the time being.

"Dead," Wilson answered. "Security shot him." He nodded to the table next to House's bed. "File's there if you want it."

House blinked at the file.

"Guess the kids were pretty freaked out," House said, his eyes almost closed, blinking slowly and breathing slowly like he was when he woke up earlier.

Wilson half-shrugged. "They handled it well. Better than Cuddy did. Or me."

"Aww," House murmured. "I'm touched."

He sank toward sleep, then opened his eyes wider. "My parents?"

"Here since Saturday. I didn't take them to meet Steve." One side of Wilson's mouth curled upward in a smile. "Who's getting fat, by the way."

House flipped over on to his stomach. "Don't tell me how to raise my rat," he mumbled.

He sank again toward sleep. Too many things he had to know. He opened his eyes again.

"You and Cuddy?"

Wilson just shrugged. "She's yours again when you get back."

House grunted and closed his eyes again.

"Your file is there too," Wilson volunteered, knowing he wanted to know and knowing he'd find out eventually if his curiosity wasn't satisfied. "Don't tell Cuddy."

"Sneaky," House mumbled, eyes still shut.

"Mild case of sepsis after you were shot," Wilson said. "Bullet pierced your bowel. Cleared right up. You've come through this remarkably well." He paused. "Provided you don't start seeing green fairies and pink elephants."

House cracked his eyes open. "Oh, so you're _not _supposed to have giant donkey ears growing from your head," he said. "I thought it was just a new look."

Wilson laughed a little, settling into the chair for that nap he'd promised Cuddy he'd take.

"It's not a _bad_ look," House murmured.

Wilson watched as he finally drifted off. Less than a minute later, familiar snores emanated from the bed. He smiled again, folded his hands behind his head, and fell asleep himself.


	9. Chapter 9

**Title:** What Folly Reason, What Folly Hope  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Characters:** everyone, but emphasis on House and Wilson's best-buddy status with Cuddy and Cameron in supporting roles  
**Spoilers:** "No Reason," "Meaning" (S3E1)  
**Summary:** A fill-in beginning after the first scene in "No Reason" and ending with the first scene in "Meaning."

Well, the new episode of the new season has given me some good stuff to finish this fic with. (No spoilers in this particular chapter.) My schedule is absolute hell, though, so I have only a short piece for you now and can't say when I'll have more. But I feel the compulsion to write that means I won't sleep if I don't write, so hopefully that means more soon. Happy New Season everyone.

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**Up from Sleep**

"House."

The vivid, lurid dream involving Wilson, Cuddy, and Exam Room 1 he'd been having melted into the sound of something clacking sharply against the side of the bed.

"Up."

He cracked his eyes open to see Cuddy standing over him holding his cane like a weapon. He lifted his head from under the pillow and stopped as the dream flashed in front of him. At the same moment, he realized he couldn't get up. Not with her standing there. And it was all her fault, too.

"I can't get up," he said simply.

Cuddy's eyes rolled to the side and she let out the exasperated sigh he was so familiar with.

"Yes, you can," she countered.

Not missing a beat, he swung his head around to see that Wilson too had been startled awake and jerked his head in Cuddy's direction.

"Oranges," he said simply to Wilson.

Wilson blinked, confused, and then meaning crashed down on his head. Open-mouthed, he glanced at Cuddy.

"He can't get up," Wilson echoed.

Cuddy just shook her head.

"You," she said pointedly to House, "I want out of my ICU. You're in 2033 now. So is your food. As soon as you can get up again, you," now she looked to Wilson, accusatorially, not having expected collusion so soon, "get him down there."

Wilson finally closed his mouth and nodded his ascent. Cuddy was gone before either of them could get another word in.

House looked to Wilson again with raised eyebrows. "The witch is back," he said. "And by witch I mean—"

"Yeah, I get it," Wilson said, getting to his feet.

House winked. "Better get on it, tiger."

Wilson sighed long-sufferingly and scratched the back of his neck. "Five minutes?"

House pretended to think very deeply, his face wrinkling dramatically.

"Hmm, better make it ten."

Half-way to the door, Wilson let his shoulders slump forward.

"Fine," he grumbled.

"I'd do the same for you if you were coming out of a week-long coma," House pointed out as he watched Wilson close the blinds.

"Let's hope we never have to find out," Wilson said before he plodded out of the room.

House smiled, happy to be free of pain and to have embarrassed Wilson in front of Cuddy, and carelessly rolled onto his back.


End file.
